Monday, February 13, 2012

The Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) was designed to protect consumers against abusive practices by the debt collections industry. But when FDCPA took effect in 1978, few people could have anticipated
how Facebook and Twitter would infiltrate our daily lives. In recent
years, a handful of lawsuits by consumers who were allegedly contacted
by collectors through social media have brought the issue to light.

One strategy collections agencies use, according to Michelle Dunn, a
24-year veteran of the debt-collection industry and author of The Guide to Getting Paid,
is to set up a fake profile and try to friend someone (however, a few
states have laws against online impersonation). "If you look like a
really good-looking girl, a lot of people would accept a friendship even
if they don't really know the person," she explains.

Dunn says she
discourages this practice in her webinars on social media and
collections. "I just tell them to use common sense," she says. "Don't
pretend you're someone you're not. There shouldn't be any interaction."

FDCPA doesn't explicitly forbid collectors from, say, posting on
your Facebook wall or tweeting your relatives to ask about your
whereabouts. But according to Craig Thor Kimmel, an Ambler, Penn.-based
consumer attorney who handles collections issues, the act's intent is
clear. "A debt collector that posts about your debt on social media
would be violating this statute very clearly because that privacy is
compromised," he says.

Despite this, collectors can use information found on a social
network to contact you in other ways. "Right now, the normal pre-social
media method would be to use the address off the loan documents and
statements, but if the consumer is unwilling to respond to the contacts
or is at a different location, they can certainly use social media as
way of finding the consumer," says John Ulzheimer, president of
Consumer Education at SmartCredit.com.

Experts suggest the following strategies to preempt unwanted calls or other communication from collectors:

1. Respond within 30 days of receiving a collections letter. For
many people who receive a letter from a collections agency, the
impulse is simply to bury their heads and ignore it. That's a mistake,
according to Ulzheimer. "You can eliminate all communication," he says.
"All you have to do is send them a letter within 30 days and tell
them, 'Do not contact me anymore through any method.' They can still
sue you for the debt, so the act of collecting doesn't necessarily
stop, but they can't send you emails or call you anymore."

If you actually owe the debt, he suggests offering a settlement so
that it doesn't continue to follow you. Third-party agencies who've
purchased the debt "don't have the same skin in the game as the
original creditor, so you could offer some sort of reasonable
settlement and be done with it."

2. Use those privacy settings. Dunn said she's
shocked by the number of consumers whose Facebook profiles are set to
completely public. "Even though I'm not your friend, I can see all your
pictures," she says. Setting your profile to private reduces the
likelihood that a collector could be eying your wall or photos.

3. Be selective about what you post. Social
networks like Facebook can create a false sense of intimacy because
you're communicating with friends. Even with a private profile, your
friends' accounts could still get hacked or someone could be peeking
over their shoulder, so it's smart to err on the side of
under-disclosing.

Dunn says collectors use social media profiles to "look for the
address or employment information. A lot of people put what their
occupation is, where they work, cell phone numbers." For instance, when
someone gets a new cell phone number, they'll sometimes post it on
Facebook so friends can reach them. "I have to say if I was somebody
who owed money, I probably wouldn't put [my cell number] online and
make it public information," adds Dunn.

Most people know not to post their Social Security or credit card
numbers, but many list their birth date. "To me, that's comical," says
Ulzheimer. "If someone walked up to you off the street and asked your
birth date, would you give it on the street? But you're gladly doing it
on Facebook."

4. Don't accept friend requests from strangers. For
reasons described earlier, don't approve requests from people you
don't know. It could be a friend of a friend, but it could also be a
collector or a spammer.

5. Skip the "like" button. Liking your bank or credit card company on Facebook may open the door to them collecting information about you
that you haven't given them. How many people actually like their
bank? To the extent that you like your bank,
that's fine, but I'm not sure that you have to memorialize that by
clicking that you like it on Facebook.

If despite these steps, a collector contacts you via a social media site, Kimmel suggests printing out the message or saving a screenshot to your computer to create a paper trial. "Once you have
that, report the sender as spam on Facebook and file a grievance with
the Federal Trade Commission," he suggests. The consumer could be
entitled to up to $1,000 plus attorney fees and actual damages "if adebt collector engages in unauthorized debt collection contact, through, for example,
social media," says Kimmel, adding that a consumer attorney could help
the person seek redress.